But more than his ingenuity and skill, it was his passion that Rama loved about Nala. Witness the way he had come bounding across the miles when he could as easily have sent one of Angad’s couriers—artfully arranged at intervals across the battle theatre for that very purpose. Like Rama himself, he swore by the maxim that if it was worth doing, it was worth doing yourself.
‘Rama,’ he said, chopping his sentences up to gasp for breath, ‘All goes just as you said. The angadiyas just brought word. Tremors from beneath the northernmost walls! Just as you predicted. And our lookouts have spotted them emerging.’ He sucked in a longer breath. ‘They are ugly brutes, Rama, larger than normal rakshasas and oddly made, with some kind of armoured hide growing on their backs and chests.’ He touched himself on the aforementioned places and grimaced. ‘I do not know how we will be able to bring them down, but Angad and Kambunara say they will find a weakness, everyone has a weakness.’
‘That they do,’ Rama agreed grimly. ‘Including us. What of the other lieutenants? Have they been deployed as instructed?’
Nala nodded vigorously, pointing as he described each one’s position. ‘Under the command of General Nila, Mainda and Dvivida man the eastern flank. Under Prince Angad, Rsabha, Gavaksa, Gaja and Gavya to the north. General Susena commands the western flank with Pramathi, Praghasa and the twins. And King Sugreeva himself, aided by the generals Satabali and Sarabha, mans the southern vanguard with the main Kiskindha fighting force.’
Rama glanced at Lakshman. They had both tried to urge Sugreeva not to enter the fray himself, given his ailing condition and the injuries he had sustained the night before. But the vanar king would not hear of it. ‘If not for you, Rama, I would have no army to command. If my life is forfeit in your cause, it is forfeit. Say not another word.’ And he had bounded off with a strong proud gait that all knew was costing him a great price to maintain.
Rama nodded. ‘It is time, then. Summon Anjaneya.’
‘Here, my lord.’ Hanuman descended from the sky with the suddenness of a bar of light emerging suddenly from behind a passing cloud.
Rama looked the vanar in the eye. ‘My friend, my brother in blood and destiny. Do exactly as we planned and leave the rest to the devas. If we are meant to succeed, then they will fight side by side with us today. Go now. Give the word to begin the march. Make sure every contingent executes their orders exactly as planned unless they hear otherwise from me. And remember, you are to watch everyone and everything and report back to me constantly, but above all you are to watch me for further instructions and any alterations in the plan that I may issue. For only you can reach our far-flung legions in time to convey my words. I know it will seem strange and frustrating, to only watch without entering the fray yourself, but you must do this for me. You will have your chance to kill rakshasas very shortly. Only do as I ask for this first phase of the battle.’
Hanuman bowed and touched Rama’s feet, then Lakshman’s. When he rose again, his eyes were shining wet. ‘By your grace, my lord,’ he said, ‘I pray I do not let you down today.’
Rama placed a hand upon Hanuman’s shoulder, and from the vanar’s response it was evident that Hanuman was overjoyed at this rare show of warm affection. ‘You will never let me down, my brother. Go now and add your name to the shining annals of the greatest yodhas of the Treta Yuga. Today you will do us all proud. I know this to be true.’
Hanuman stared mutely at Rama, then blinked away sudden tears. Before anyone could say another word, the vanar raised his chin and flew straight up with astonishing speed, gone in a blink.
Rama turned back to Nala. ‘Go now, my young architect. Send back word to all through the angadiyas to start the movements I outlined earlier.’
Nala nodded vigorously. ‘They will do exactly as you desire, Rama. There is scarcely a vanar or a bear on this field that does not have a fallen friend or blood-kin to avenge today in Lanka.’
‘Even so,’ Rama said, ‘remind them that while the desire for vengeance is a good servant to a soldier, it is a bad master. Let them curb their anger and unleash it only when permitted to do so by my order. And remember that the signal to change the formation will come from above, from Maruti, not from me or you or the angadiyas. Is that clear?’
Nala nodded, sombre now. ‘All shall be well, by your grace,’ he said. He dipped his snout to kiss Rama’s feet, then Lakshman’s, before they could protest—for neither approved of this particular vanar custom—and in a trice was bounding back downhill, already yelling out instructions to the nearest angadiyas. Before Rama could draw his next breath, the words he had spoken were being passed on through the ingenious and wildfire-quick network that was one of the great strengths of the vanar armies.
He turned back to see Lakshman scouring the lands below, to the north, then east, then west, and finally in the southern valley before them whence they had come a little while ago.
‘What are you looking for, Sumitra-putra?’ Rama asked, although he could guess.
‘Bears,’ Lakshman said, then flashed a wolfish grin at his brother. ‘I am looking for any sign of bears, Kausalya-putra.’
Rama inclined his head slyly. ‘And did you find any?’
Lakshman turned up his hands, palm upwards. ‘Not a one. It is as if they have all vanished off the face of Lanka.’
Rama nodded slowly. ‘Good. Then we are truly ready to begin.’ He picked up his bow in one hand and his sword in the other, preparing to give the final signal to the vanar armies. He paused, then glanced at Lakshman again. ‘Son of Dasaratha, you have not spoken a word concerning my battle plan since our first war council this morning. Even now, you speak of everything but the plan. Will you not offer me one argument or correction?’
Lakshman looked back at him with a tight smile, his own bow off his shoulder and in his hands now, an arrow already on the string. ‘Is that not enough to tell you what I think of it, Dasaratha-putra?’
Rama smiled back. ‘I am blessed to have you by my side today.’
Then he raised the bow in his left hand and the sword in his right, kept them aloft long enough for Hanuman to note, then dropped them to his sides in the pre-agreed signal to start the battle.
Then, as one being with two hearts, they surged forward, sprinting down the slope of Mount Suvela, towards the field of battle.
KAAND 3
ONE
A horn carved from the tusk of a mahish-rakshasa, an extinct asura species, sounded across the Lankan side of the battleground, calling the rakshasa armies to order. Its grating, low-pitched trumpeting, resembling a bull elephant’s mating call, nevertheless carried far enough to reach Vajradanta’s ears.
The general, seated atop a kumbha-sur, one of a small number of hybrid broken-surs cross-bred with kumbha-rakshasas, pointed the leaf-shaped head of his lance at his herald. The nervous albino rakshasa, colourless eyes covered to protect them from the blinding sunlight, raised his own horn to his maw, inserted his oral orifice entirely into the opening of his mahishasura trumpet, unusually large as befitted the army’s main herald, and issued a call both higher-pitched and more threatening than any of the earlier ones.
It was echoed by identically high-pitched trumpeting from the far corners of the battleground, some from so far away that even Vajradanta, mounted four whole yards above high ground, could not see the flanks and rear formations. The trumpeting was echoed as well by the enraged lowing of bull elephants in the prime of masth, the mating frenzy that drove them to battle one another and tear up the countryside in search of mates. The masth tuskers had been corralled and harnessed specially for this battle, and it took a score of rakshasas controlled by kumbhas to hold each one down with ropes. At the sound of the high-pitched horns, laced with notes that were designed to enrage them as well as the sensitive hearing organs of the rakshasas, they renewed their frantic efforts to free themselves, crushing their captors.
Elsewhere, kumbha sergeants lashed their troops one last time, bellowing orders that had been repeated s
o often that some of their command actually moved their lips in time with their sergeant’s words, repeating by rote.
There were a variety of rakshasa species on display. The kumbhas were a familiar sight, their numbers woefully depleted, yet the two hordes that stood today on the grounds of Lanka still made for a formidable sight. Their hulking shapes bristled with horned armour, their fists clenching mostly the blunt-edged mace-like pounders they preferred in battle.
The wagh-rakshasas were distant kin to Supanakha, though she was a yaksi-rakshasi, cross-bred and unique, and resembled various sub-species of felines: some with thick yellow-and-black striped bodies, some sleek, jet black and muscular like bagheera panthers, others spotted like leopards crouched on their hind legs, yet others sporting the pair of large fore-fangs and white fur of the northern cats, and even a platoon’s worth of leonine rakshasas, mangy manes and roar and all. The rest were an amalgam of various lesser breeds, an odd admixture of rakshasa and clouded leopard, golden cat, jungle cat, marble cat, fishing cat, lynx, caracal, cheetah, pallas cat, desert cat, civet, toddy tiger, marbled polecat, palm civet and binturong.
The lupine sub-species were collectively known in Lankan commonspeak as the ‘dog fighters’. Their hierarchy—for all rakshasa sub-species were decided by strength and viciousness bred over generations to determine the order of their varnas, in a mocking imitation of the castes that mortals followed—was headed by the wolf variants with their sleek, grey fur and great slobbering jaws. These were followed by the jackal-rakshasas, then, in successively descending order of varna, the red foxes, the desi foxes, the dholes, hyenas,coyotes, and the various mangy pariah cross-mutations.
Farther outfield, though he could not see them, Vajradanta visualised the ranks of the mahish-rakshasas, claiming descent directly from the legendary Mahish-asura himself, he who had compelled the ur-Mother Goddess, Devi, to take a rebirth in order to rid the world of his menace. They were less respectfully known as the ‘buffalo buffoons’, on account of their relatively less developed intellect—no rakshasa sub-species actually took pride in calling itself intelligent—and obvious physical characteristics. Here one found the gaurs, the bantengs, the yaks, the mithuns, oxen, bison and tsaine rakshasas.
Bearing a biological similarity to the mahish-rakshasas, but no obvious physical resemblances apart from similarly cloven or hoofed feet, were the antlered families, as they preferred to be called, more commonly known as ghaass-phuss eaters, because their digestive systems were better suited to vegetarianism despite being rakshasas. It often made them the fiercest fighters, perhaps to redress any misconceptions about their eating habits reflecting in their capacity for inflicting violence upon fleshly creatures. These came in an astonishing number of variants: the most recognisable were the shapus, marcos, nayans, bharals, ibex, leapers, markhors, nilgiri tahrs, high tahrs, nilgai, fourhorns, chinkaras, blackbucks, sambhars, kashmiras, thamin, swampers, chitals, chevrotains, hoggers, muskers, muntjacs, wildtusks and barkers. Seen from a distance, their torsos and lower bodies concealed by high grass, one could be forgiven for mistaking them at first sight for a herd of unusually diverse deer-like creatures. Closer up, one would be left in no doubt at all that they were savage rakshasas.
And finally, there were the few exceptions that were not enough to make up a tribe, let alone a horde, but were invaluable as wild cards in a battle. These were the one-horns, strikingly similar to the near-sighted armour-plated animals on the mainland, except that they could stand briefly on their hind legs at times, and were rakshasas through and through; the elephants, differing only from their ‘normal’ counterparts in that they had been raised by and with rakshasas for generations and taught to fear and hate the scent of mortals and other enemies of the asura races; and the broken-surs, once perhaps related to the desert horses with their water-carrying humps that mortals sometimes harnessed to cross the vast desolate sands of the Gobi aranyas, but with that unique cloven skull, from which their name derived, meaning literally ‘broken-headed’ and their squatter, speedier, more horse-like skeletal structure.
All in all, it was a formidable line-up, enough to strike terror into the heart of any army in the three worlds. Indeed, it was the rakshasas that had formed the vanguard during Ravana’s legendary invasion of swarga-lok, the heavenly realms of the devas, when the other asura races had displayed typical last-minute jitters at warring with the very gods themselves. And it was the rakshasas that had had first spoils of conquest in those divine realms.
Vajradanta licked his chops as he recalled the hedonistic glories he had enjoyed on that campaign. His nether organs stirred at the recollection too. He grinned, baring his famous teeth at last as he urged his kumbha-sur forward, raising his ten-yard-long lance high into the morning air, catching the sunlight, and roared: ‘Ra-van-a!’
For that was the war cry of the united rakshasas of Lanka now, agreed upon after some cajoling—and cudgelling—on the part of their lord and master after his reawakening, replacing the dozens of separate tribe and horde-cries that had been customary before.
Ra-va-na. He Who Makes the Universe Scream. Vajradanta personally thought it was a splendid war cry. And what could strike fear into the hearts of the enemy more effectively than the name of the most dreaded creature in all existence?
As he spurred his mount into a trot, then a canter, taking it slowly only in order to let the other commanders follow apace, he heard the cry resound across the massed ranks of the Lankan army, echoed in a hundred different animalistic accents and variations, until it coordinated roughly into a deafening, bone-shuddering boom of a sound. ‘RA-VAN-A!’
***
Vibhisena reached the top of Mount Suvela just in time to hear the Lankan war cry resound from the foothills of Mount Nikumbhila. That the engorged exultation carried all the way to this spot, miles from the actual battlefield, reflected the mood of the rakshasa hordes. They did not merely intend to win; they were winning. Their palpable sense of victory rolled across the valleys and low hills that separated him from the place where so many lives would engage in a struggle to the death only moments from now. He bowed his head and mouthed a prayer for Rama’s forces as well as for Lanka itself, not the Lanka of Ravana and his bestial hordes, but the gentle, pure Lanka that had existed long before the lord of asuras had wrested this pristine island away from his brother Kuber and that would, he believed, survive long after Ravana’s evil reign ended. For it would end, he believed. He might not have the unshakeable faith that Hanuman had in his lord and master, but he believed in Rama too in his own way, or he would not be standing here today, on the wrong side of a theatre of war wherein the fate of his own land, his own people, was being decided.
He caught a flicker of movement in the sky and glanced up to see Hanuman flying overhead. The vanar was criss-crossing this section of the island-kingdom incessantly now, checking and rechecking troop formations and movements, for in this first phase of the battle, Vibhisena understood, manoeuvres would be crucial to gaining the upper hand. He prayed that Rama’s armies, numerous though they were in sheer head count, would be able to withstand the far greater strength and skill of Ravana’s hordes—not to mention the fact that the armoured, armed and battle-hardened rakshasas had enormous natural advantages over the naked, mostly unarmed and completely unblooded vanars. At least the bears possessed bulk and size in this otherwise woefully unequal clash.
As the last of the vanar troops in the declivity to the left disappeared over the top of a rise, going out of sight for a moment—they would appear again once they crossed the ghats and arrived in sight of the main fighting plain—he wished, not for the first time, that he was a warrior too, if only so that he could pit his own strength in Rama’s favour. But that was wishing for too much. Though he was a rakshasa, a lifetime of hard penance—bhor tapasya—and the fasting, self-deprivation and sacrifice necessary to pursue his Brahminical goals had depleted him of the savage energy of his race. Yet, he knew he was stronger than an entire regiment of raks
hasas in the one thing that mattered most to him—spiritual strength—and it was that which enabled him to stand tall now on the peak of Mount Suvela, where Rama and Lakshman had stood only a little while ago, and gaze out at the impending battle.
As the horns of Lanka sounded the final command to charge at full galloping speed, and the war cries reached a crescendo that echoed from the walls of the stone ramparts that now fenced in the land on every seafront, Vibhisena released a great pent-up sigh and lowered his weary body to the grassy mound. He sat cross-legged and focussed his mind on the perfect incantation of shlokas to help ensure the fruition of Rama’s just cause, and the downfall of his own brother Ravana’s empire.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not see the vanar Hanuman whoosh by only a hundred yards overhead, on his way to carry out yet another overlook of the enemy forces.
***
Hanuman slowed his flight until he was hovering directly over the rakshasa army. The hordes were moving at canter speed now, and were building up momentum to reach a full-out charge. Already the dust cloud raised in their wake was half the height of Nikumbhila itself, and growing steadily. It provoked his senses to see the army of rakshasas charging headlong in the direction of his comrades, but his orders were explicit and undeniable: he was to stay aloft until Rama called upon him. His surveys completed now, he was only to wait and watch. The hardest task of all, for a warrior. He hovered above the theatre of war. For a moment, he was overwhelmed by the urge to expand himself and simply drop down like a hammer from the sky, pounding the rakshasas into the dust of their own homeland, but his devotion to Rama overcame this urge, and he subsided, forcing himself to remain a calm and detached observer as his mission required him to be.
A reflection off a bright burnished object distracted him and he glanced in the direction of the mountain that towered above the valley in time to see the celestial vehicle of Ravana rising swiftly to the top of the highest ramparts. He scanned the ramparts suspiciously, alert for any sign of mischief, but that was clearly unlikely: the forces of Rama were yet miles away, too far for any flung missile to reach. Correction: too far for any physically flung missiles to reach. He could not vouch for sorcery’s tricks.
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 66